a late september wind from the northwest was sweeping over the waters of racicot harbour. it blew in, strong with the tang of the salt seas, past the grim lighthouse rock on the one hand and the sandbars on the other, up the long, narrow funnel of darkly blue water, until it whistled among the masts of the boats at anchor and among the stovepipe chimneys of the fishing village. it was a wind that sang and piped and keened of many things—but what it sang to each listener was only what was in that listener's heart. and nora shelley, standing at the door of her father's bleached cottage on the grey sands, heard a new strain in it. the wind had sung often to her of the outer world she longed for, but there had never been the note of fulfilment in it before.
there's a new life beyond, nora, whistled the wind. a good life—and it's yours for the taking. you have but to put out your hand and all you've wished for will be in your grasp.
nora leaned out from the door to meet the wind. she loved that northwest gale; it was a staunch old friend of hers. very slim and straight was nora, with a skin as white as the foam flakes crisping over the sands, and eyes of the tremulous, haunting blue that deepens on the water after a fair sunset. but her hair was as black as midnight, and her lips blossomed out with a ripe redness against the uncoloured purity of her face. she was far and away the most beautiful of the harbour girls, but hardly the most popular. men and women alike thought her proud. even her friends felt themselves called upon to make excuses for her unlikeness to themselves.
nora had dosed the door behind her to shut in the voices. she wanted to be alone with the wind while she made her decision. before her the sandy shingle, made firm by a straggling growth of some pale sea-ivy, sloped down to the sapphire cup of the harbour. around her were the small, uncouth houses of the village—no smaller or more uncouth than the one which was her home—with children playing noisily on the paths between them. the mackerel boats curtsied and nodded outside; beyond them the sharp tip of sandy point was curdled white with seagulls. down at the curve of the cove a group of men were laughing and talking loudly in front of french joe's fish-house. this was the life that she had always known.
across the harbour, on a fir-fringed headland, stood dalveigh. john cameron, childless millionaire, had built a summer cottage on that point two years ago, and given it the name of the old ancestral estate in scotland. to the racicot fishing folk the house and grounds were as a dream of enchantment made real. few of them had ever seen anything like it.
nora shelley knew dalveigh well. she had been the camerons' guest many times that summer, finding in the luxury and beauty of their surroundings something that entered with a strange aptness into her own nature. it was as if it were hers by right of fitness. and this was the life that might be hers, did she so choose.
in reality, her choice was already made, and she knew it. but it pleased her to pretend for a little time that it was not, and to dally tenderly with-the old loves and emotions that tugged at her heart and clamoured to be remembered.
within, in the low-ceilinged living room, with its worn, uneven floor and its blackened walls hung with fish nets and oilskins, four people were sitting. john cameron and his wife were given the seats of honour in the middle of the room. mrs. cameron was a handsome, well-dressed woman, with an expression that was discontented and, at times, petulant. yet her face had a good deal of plain common sense in it, and not even the most critical of the racicot folks could say that she "put on airs." her husband was a small, white-haired man, with a fresh, young-looking face. he was popular in racicot, for he mingled freely with the sailors and fishermen. moreover, dalveigh was an excellent market for fresh mackerel.
nathan shelley, in his favourite corner behind the stove, sat lurching forward with his hands on his knees. he had laid aside his pipe out of deference to mrs. cameron, and it was hard for him to think without it. he wished his wife would go to work; it seemed uncanny to see her idle. she had sat idle only once that he remembered—the day they had brought ned shelley in, dank and dripping, after the august storm ten years before. mrs. shelley sat by the crooked, small-paned window and looked out down the harbour. the coat she had been patching for her husband when the camerons came still lay in her lap, and she had folded her hands upon it. she was a big woman, slow of speech and manner, with a placid, handsome face—a face that had not visibly stirred even when she had heard the camerons' proposition.
they wanted nora—these rich people who had so much in life wanted the blossom of girlhood that had never bloomed for them. john cameron pleaded his cause well.
"we will look on her as our own," he said at last. "we have grown to love her this summer. she is beautiful and clever—she has a right to more than racicot can give her. you have other children—we are childless. and we do not take her from you utterly. you will see her every summer when we come to dalveigh."
"it won't be the same thing quite," said nathan shelley drily. "she'll belong to your life then—not ours. and no matter how many young ones folks has, they don't want to lose none of 'em. but i dunno as we ought to let our feelings stand in nora's light. she's clever, and she's been hankering for more'n we can ever give her. i was the same way once. lord, how i raged at racicot! i broke away finally—went to a city and got work. but it wasn't no use. i'd left it too long. the sea had got into my blood. i toughed it out for two years, and then i had to come back. i didn't want to, mark you, but i had to come. been here ever since. but maybe 'twill be different with the girl. she's younger than i was; if the hankering for the sea and the life of the shore hasn't got into her too deep, maybe she'll be able to cut loose for good. but you don't know how the sea calls to one of its own."
cameron smiled. he thought that this dry old salt was a bit of a poet in his own way. very likely nora got her ability and originality from him. there did not seem to be a great deal in the phlegmatic, good-looking mother.
"what say, wife?" asked shelley at last.
his wife had said in her slow way, "leave it to nora," and to nora it was left.
when she came in at last, her face stung to radiant beauty by the northwest wind, she found it hard to tell them after all. she looked at her mother appealingly.
"is it go or stay, girl," demanded her father brusquely.
"i think i'll go," said nora slowly. then, catching sight of her mother's face, she ran to her and flung her arms about her. "but i'll never forget you, mother," she cried. "i'll love you always—you and father."
her mother loosened the clinging arms and pushed her gently towards the camerons.
"go to them," she said calmly. "you belong to them now."
the news spread quickly over racicot. before night everyone on the harbour shore knew that the camerons were going to adopt nora shelley and take her away with them. there was much surprise and more envy. the shore women tossed their heads.
"reckon nora is in great feather," they said. "she always did think herself better than anyone else. nate shelley and his wife spoiled her ridiculous. wonder what rob fletcher thinks of it?"
nora asked her brother to tell the news to rob fletcher himself, but merran andrews was before him. she was at rob before he had fairly landed, when the fishing boats came in at sunset.
"have you heard the news, rob? nora's going away to be a fine lady. the camerons have been daft about her all summer, and now they are going to adopt her."
merran wanted rob herself. he was a big, handsome fellow, and well-off—the pick of the harbour men in every way. he had slighted her for nora, and it pleased her to stab him now, though she meant to be nice to him later on.
he turned white under his tan, but he did not choose to make a book of his heart for merran's bold black eyes to read. "it's a great thing for her," he answered calmly. "she was meant for better things than can be found at racicot."
"she was always too good for common folks, if that is what you mean," said merran spitefully.
nora and rob did not meet until the next evening, when she rowed herself home from dalveigh. he was at the shore to tie up her boat and help her out. they walked up the sands together in the heart of the autumn sunset, with the northwest wind whistling in their ears and the great star of the lighthouse gleaming wanly out against the golden sky. nora felt uncomfortable, and resented it. rob fletcher was nothing to her; he never had been anything but the good friend to whom she told her strange thoughts and longings. why should her heart ache over him? she wished he would talk, but he strode along in silence, with his fine head drooping a little.
"i suppose you have heard that i am going away, rob?" she said at last.
he nodded. "yes, i've heard it from a hundred mouths, more or less," he answered, not looking at her.
"it's a splendid thing for me, isn't it?" dared nora.
"well, i don't know," he said slowly. "looking at it from the outside, it seems so. but from the inside it mayn't look the same. do you think you'll be able to cut twenty years of a life out of your heart without any pain?"
"oh, i'll be homesick, if that is what you mean," said nora petulantly. "of course i'll be that at first. i expect it—but people get over that. and it is not as if i were going away for good. i'll be back next summer—every summer."
"it'll be different," said rob stubbornly, thinking as old nathan shelley had thought. "you'll be a fine lady—oh, all the better for that perhaps—but you'll not be the same. no, no, the new life will change you; not all at once, maybe, but in the end. you'll be one of them, not one of us. but will you be happy? that's the question i'm asking."
in anyone else nora would have resented this. but she never felt angry with rob.
"i think i shall be," she said thoughtfully. "and, anyway, i must go. it doesn't seem as if i could help myself if i wanted to. something—out beyond there—is calling me, always has been calling me ever since i was a tiny girl and found out there was a big world far away from racicot. and it always seemed to me that i would find a way to it some day. that was why i kept going to school long after the other girls stopped. mother thought i'd better stop home; she said too much book learning would make me discontented and too different from the people i had to live along. but father let me go; he understood; he said i was like him when he was young. i learned everything and read everything i could. it seems to me as if i had been walking along a narrow pathway all my life. and now it seems as if a gate were opened before me and i can pass through into a wider world. it isn't the luxury and the pleasure or the fine house and dresses that tempt me, though the people here think so—even mother thinks so. but it is not. it's just that something seems to be in my grasp that i've always longed for, and i must go—rob, i must go."
"yes, if you feel like that you must go," he answered, looking down at her troubled face gently. "and it's best for you to go, nora. i believe that, and i'm not so selfish as not to be able to hope that you'll find all you long for. but it will change you all the more if it is so. nora! nora! whatever am i going to do without you!"
the sudden passion bursting out in his tone frightened her.
"don't, rob, don't! and you won't miss me long. there's many another."
"no, there isn't. don't fling me that dry bone of comfort. there's no other, and never has been any other—none but you, nora, and well you know it."
"i'm sorry," she said faintly.
"you needn't be," said rob grimly. "after all, i'd rather love you than not, hurt as it will. i never had much hope of getting you to listen to me, so there's no great disappointment there. you're too good for me—i've always known that. a girl that is fit to mate with the camerons is far above rob fletcher, fisherman."
"i never had such a thought," protested nora.
"i know it," he said, casing himself up in his quietness again. "but it's so—and now i've got to lose you. but there'll never be any other for me, nora."
he left her at her father's door. she watched his stalwart figure out of sight around the point, and raged to find tears in her eyes and a bitter yearning in her heart. for a moment she repented—she would stay—she could not go. then over the harbour flashed out the lights of dalveigh. the life behind them glittered, allured, beckoned. nay, she must go on—she had made her choice. there was no turning back now.
nora shelley went away with the camerons, and dalveigh was deserted. winter came down on racicot harbour, and the colony of fisher folk at its head gave themselves over to the idleness of the season—a time for lounging and gossipping and long hours of lazy contentment smoking in the neighbours' chimney corners, when tales were told of the sea and the fishing. the harbour laid itself out to be sociable in winter. there was no time for that in summer. people had to work eighteen hours out of the twenty-four then. in the winter there was spare time to laugh and quarrel, woo and wed and—were a man so minded—dream, as did rob fletcher in his loneliness.
in a racicot winter much was made of small things. the arrival of nora shelley's weekly letter to her father and mother was an event in the village. the post-mistress in the cove store spread the news that it had come, and that night the shelley kitchen would be crowded. isobel shelley, nora's younger sister, read the letter aloud by virtue of having gone to school long enough to be able to pronounce the words and tell where the places named were situated.
the camerons had spent the autumn in new york and had then gone south for the winter. nora wrote freely of her new life. in the beginning she admitted great homesickness, but after the first few letters she made no further mention of that. she wrote little of herself, but she described fully the places she had visited, the people she had met, the wonderful things she had seen. she sent affectionate messages to all her old friends and asked after all her old interests. but the letters came to be more and more like those of a stranger and one apart from the racicot life, and the father and mother felt it.
"she's changing," muttered old nathan. "it had to be so—it's well for her that it is so—but it hurts. she ain't ours any more. we've lost the girl, wife, lost her forever."
rob fletcher always came and listened to the letters in silence while the others buzzed and commented. rob, so the harbour folk said, was much changed. he had grown unsociable and preferred to stay home and read books rather than go a-visiting as did others. the harbour folk shook their heads over this. there was something wrong with a man who read books when there was a plenty of other amusements. jacob radnor had read books all one winter and had drowned himself in the spring—jumped overboard from his dory at the herring nets. and that was what came of books, mark you.
the camerons came later to dalveigh the next summer, on account of john cameron's health, which was not good. it was the first of august before a host of servants came to put dalveigh in habitable order, and a week later the family came. they brought a houseful of guests with them.
at sunset on the day of her arrival nora shelley looked out cross the harbour to the fishing village. she was tired after her journey, and she had not meant to go over until the morning, but now she knew she must go at once. her mother was over there; the old life called to her; the northwest wind swept up the channel and whistled alluringly to her at the window of her luxurious room. it brought to her the tang of the salt wastes and filled her heart with a great, bitter-sweet yearning.
she was more beautiful than ever. in the year that had passed she had blossomed out to a gracious fulfilment of womanhood. even the camerons had wondered at her swift adaptation to her new surroundings. she seemed to have put racicot behind her as one puts by an old garment. in everything she had held her own royally. her adopted parents were proud of her beauty and her nameless, untamed charm. they had lavished every indulgence upon her. in those few short months she had lived more keenly and fully than in all her life before. the nora shelley who went away was not, so it would seem, the nora shelley who came back.
but when she looked from her window to the waves and saw the star of the lighthouse and the blaze of the sunset in the window of the fishing-houses and heard the summons of the wind, something broke loose in her soul and overwhelmed her, like a wave of the sea. she must go at once—at once—at once. not a moment could she wait.
she was dressed for dinner, but with tingling fingers she threw off her costly gown and put on her dark travelling suit again. she left her hair as it was and knotted a crimson scarf about her head. she would slip away quietly to the boathouse, get davy to launch the little sailboat for her—and then for a fleet skim over the harbour before that glorious wind! she hoped not to be seen, but mrs. cameron met her in the hall.
"nora!" she said in astonishment.
"oh, i must go, aunty! i must go!" the girl cried feverishly. she was afraid mrs. cameron would try to prevent her going, and all at once she knew that she could not bear that.
"must go? where? dinner is almost ready, and—"
"oh, i don't want any dinner. i'm going home—i will sail over."
"my dear child, don't be foolish. it's too late to go over the harbour tonight. they won't be expecting you. wait until the morning."
"no—oh, you don't understand. i must go—i must! my mother is over there."
something in the girl's last sentence or the tone in which it was uttered brought a look of pain to mrs. cameron's face. but she made no further attempt to dissuade her.
"well, if you must. but you cannot go alone—no, nora, i cannot allow it. the wind is too high and it is too late for you to go over by yourself. clark bryant will take you."
nora would have protested but she knew it would be in vain. she submitted somewhat sullenly and walked down to the shore in silence. clark bryant strode beside her, humouring her mood. he was a tall, stout man, with an ugly, clever, sarcastic face. he was as clever as he looked, and was one of the younger millionaires whom john cameron drew around him in the development of his huge financial schemes. bryant was in love with nora. this was why the camerons had asked him to join their august house party at dalveigh, and why he had accepted. it had occurred to nora that this was the case, but as yet she had never troubled to think the situation over seriously.
she liked clark bryant well enough, but just at the moment he was in the way. she did not want to take him over to racicot—just why she could not have explained. there was in her no snobbish shame of her humble home. but he did not belong there; he was an alien, and she wished to go back to it for the first time alone.
at the boathouse davy launched the small sailboat and nora took the tiller. she knew every inch of the harbour. as the sail filled before the wind and the boat sprang across the upcurling waves, her brief sullenness fell away from her. she no longer resented clark bryant's presence—she forgot it. he was no more to her than the mast by which he stood. the spell of the sea and the wind surged into her heart and filled it with wild happiness and measureless content. over yonder, where the lights gleamed on the darkening shore under the high-sprung arch of pale golden sky, was home. how the wind whistled to welcome her back! the lash of it against her face—the flick of salt spray on her lips—the swing of the boat as it cut through the racing crests—how glorious it all was!
clark bryant watched her, understanding all at once that he was nothing to her, that he had no part or lot in her heart. he was as one forgotten and left behind. and how lovely, how desirable she was! he had never seen her look so beautiful. the shawl had slipped down to her shoulders and her head rose out of it like some magnificent flower out of a crimson calyx. the masses of her black hair lifted from her face in the rush of the wind and swayed back again like rich shadows. her lips were stung scarlet with the sea's sharp caresses, and her eyes, large and splendid, looked past him unseeing to the harbour lights of racicot.
when they swung in by the wharf nora sprang from the boat before bryant had time to moor it. pausing for an instant, she called down to him, carelessly, "don't wait for me. i shall not go back tonight."
then she caught her shawl around her head and almost ran up the wharf and along the shore. no one was abroad, for it was supper hour in racicot. in the shelley kitchen the family was gathered around the table, when the door was flung open and nora stood on the threshold. for a moment they gazed at her as at an apparition. they had not known the precise day of her coming and were not aware of the camerons' arrival at dalveigh.
"it's the girl herself. it's nora," said old nathan, rising from his bench.
"mother!" cried nora. she ran across the room and buried her face in her mother's breast, sobbing.
when the news spread, the racicot people crowded in to see nora until the house was full. they spent a noisy, merry, whole-hearted evening of the old sort. the men smoked and most of the women knitted while they talked. they were pleased to find that nora did not put on any airs. old jonas myers bluntly told her that he didn't see as her year among rich folks had done her much good, after all.
"you're just the same as when you went away," he said. "they haven't made a fine lady of you. folks here thought you'd be something wonderful."
nora laughed. she was glad that they did not find her changed. old nathan chuckled in his dry way. there was a difference in the girl, and he saw it, though the neighbours did not, but it was not the difference he had feared. his daughter was not utterly taken from him yet.
nora sat by her mother and was happy. but as the evening wore away she grew very quiet, and watched the door with something piteous in her eyes. old nathan noticed it and thought she was tired. he gave the curious neighbours a good-natured hint, and they presently withdrew. when they had all gone nora went out to the door alone.
the wind had died down and the shore, gemmed with its twinkling lights, was very still, for it was too late an hour for racicot folk to be abroad in the mackerel season. the moon was rising and the harbour was a tossing expanse of silver waves. the mellow light fell on a tall figure lurking at the angle of the road that led past the shelley cottage. nora saw and recognized it. she flew down the sandy slope with outstretched hands.
"rob—rob!"
"nora!" he said huskily, holding out his hand. but she flung herself on his breast and clung to him, half laughing, half crying.
"oh, rob! i've been looking for you all the evening. every time there was a step i said to myself, 'that is rob, now.' and when the door opened to let in another, my heart died within me. i dared not even ask after you for fear of what they might tell me. why didn't you come?"
"i didn't know that i'd be welcome," he whispered, holding her closer to him. "i've been hanging about thinking to get a glimpse of you unbeknown. i thought maybe you wouldn't want to see me tonight."
"not want to see you! oh, rob, this evening at dalveigh, when i looked across to racicot, it was you i thought of before all—even before mother."
she drew back and looked at him with her soul in her eyes.
"what a splendid fellow you are—how handsome you are, rob!" she cried. all the reserve of womanhood fell away from her in the inrush of emotions. for the moment she was a child again, telling out her thoughts with all a child's frankness. "i've been in a dream this past year—a lovely dream—a fair dream, but only a dream, after all. and now i've wakened. and you are part of the wakening—the best part! oh, to think i never knew before!"
"knew what, my girl?"
he had her close against his heart now; the breath of her lips mingled with his, but he would not kiss her yet.
"that i loved you," she whispered back. "oh, rob, you are all the world to me. i belong to you and the sea. but i never knew it until i crossed the harbour tonight. then i knew—it came to me all at once, like a flood of understanding. i knew i could never go away again—that i must stay here forever where i could hear that call of wind and waves. the new life was good—good—but it could not go deep enough. and when you did not come i knew what was in my heart for you as well."
that night nora lay beside her sisters in the tiny room that looked out on the harbour. the younger girls slept soundly, but nora kept awake to listen to the laughter of the wind outside, and con over what she and rob had said to each other. there was no blot on her happiness save a sorry wonder what the camerons would say when they knew.
"they will think me ungrateful and fickle," she sighed. "they don't know that i can't help it even if i would. they will never understand."
nor did they. when nora told them that she was going back to racicot, they laughed at her kindly at first, treating it as the passing whim of a homesick girl. later, when they came to understand that she meant it, they were grieved and angry. there were scenes of pleading and tears and reproaches. nora cried bitterly in mrs. cameron's arms, but stood rock-firm. she could never go back to them—never.
they appealed to nathan shelley finally, but he refused to say anything.
"it can't be altered," he told them. "the sea has called her and she'll listen to naught else. i'm sorry enough for the girl's own sake. it would have been better for her if she could have cut loose from it all and lived your life, i dare say. but you've made a fair trial and it's of no use. i know what's in her heart—it was in mine once—and i'll say no word of rebuke to her. she's free to go or stay as she chooses—just as free as she was last year."
mrs. cameron made one more appeal to nora. she told the girl bitterly that she was ungrateful.
"i'm not that," said nora with quivering lips. "i love you, and i'm grateful to you. but your life isn't for me, after all. i thought it was—i longed so for it. and i loved it, too—i love it yet. but there's something stronger in me that holds me here."
"i don't think you realize what you are doing, nora. you have been a little homesick and you are glad to be back. but after we have gone and you must settle into the old racicot life again, you will not be contented. you will find that your life with us will have unfitted you for this. there will be no real place for you here—nothing for you to do. you will be as a stranger here."
"oh, no. i am going to marry rob fletcher," said nora proudly.
"marry rob fletcher! and you might have married clark bryant, nora!"
nora shook her head. "that could never have been. i thought it might once—but i know better now. you see, i love rob."
there did not seem to be anything more to say after that. mrs. cameron did not try to say anything. she went away in sorrow.
nora cried bitterly after she had gone. but there were no tears in her eyes that night when she walked on the shore with rob fletcher. the wind whistled around them, and the stars came out in the great ebony dome of the sky over the harbour. laughter and song of the fishing folk were behind them, and the deep, solemn call of the sea before. over the harbour gleamed the score of lights at dalveigh. rob looked from them to nora.
"do you think you'll ever regret yon life, my girl?"
"never, rob. it seems to me now like a beautiful garment put on for a holiday and worn easily and pleasantly for a time. but i've put it off now, and put on workaday clothes again. it is only a week since i left dalveigh, but it seems long ago. listen to the wind, rob! it is singing of the good days to be for you and me."
he bent over and kissed her.
"my own dear lass!" he said softly.
